


Road Hazards

by Areiton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison Argent & Derek Hale Friendship, Allison Argent & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Grieving, M/M, Road Trips, Running Away, Scott Dies, Sterek Bingo, leaving beacon hills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-03 05:10:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14561571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: He leaves before the funeral.He doesn't leave a note. Just drops his phone on his bed and waves a two finger salute at the camera still in his bedroom and--He just leaves.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore the grief and trauma of season 3b--but I also wanted to make Stiles and Allison besties. So--if Scott died because of the nogitsune instead of Allison....  
> Y'all I promise a HEA for Sterek, but this is kinda sad and fair warning for that.

He leaves before the funeral is over, his stomach cramped and hurting, and his tie choking him. He sends the text when he finishes packing, something that takes less than ten minutes because he doesn’t care really, doesn’t want to take anything that will remind him, and he gets a two word response within thirty seconds, and that's that.

He doesn't leave a note. Just drops his phone on his bed and waves a two finger salute at the camera still in his bedroom and--

He just leaves.

 

~*~

 

The first time he met Scott McCall, he hated him.

He was crying and the teacher was focused on him and Stiles wanted his Batman lunchbox, and this snotty nosed kid wouldn’t _shut up._

Stiles hated him. Until later, when he was digging a sandcastle, alone and he could hear Jackson laughing at him, for being alone, for being the freak with a cop for a dad.

Then Scott sat down next to him, tear stained and almost defiant in his determination to be friends with Stiles and it was the beginning.

Of everything.

 

~*~

 

The girl who climbs in the backseat of his Jeep doesn’t look anything like the Disney princess that Scott fell for and gave his pen to.

She looks--Stiles snorts and Allison gives him a confused look, and he shakes his head, turning into the parking lot.

He sure as hell is in no position to point out someone else looking like hell.

The derelict building that houses Derek’s loft is, as ever, intimidating and hulking and Stiles honks once, even knowing Derek will have heard him coming from two miles out.

He scowls as he stalks up to the Jeep, tossing his bag into the back and throwing himself into the seat. His claws flex on his leg, twice, and Stiles thinks it again, how different he looks from the first time he saw Derek, glaring and young and lost in the preserve.

They all look like they’ve come through a war--and not quite survived.

He pushes the thought away and shifts gear, and they leave Beacon Hills behind.

 

~*~

 

Allison sleeps a lot.

For the first two days, she curls in the backseat, buried under blankets and Stiles’ discarded hoodie and a jacket he recognizes but refuses to actually address, and sleeps. She refuses food when it’s offered and doesn’t do much in the way of talking even when she’s awake, and Stiles has a moment, when he watches her stumble out of a gas station, sweats baggy and hanging low on her hips, hair lank and dirty, shirt too big and baggy around hunched shoulders, that he wonders if they did the right thing.

If letting her run with him was what Allison needed.

“I don’t know how to fix her,” he whispers.

_I don’t know how to fix any of us._

“You don’t,” Derek says, “You just give her space and time to fix herself.”

 

~*~

 

Derek drives a lot, when Stiles’ eyes cross and his hands shake, or when he can’t breath through the guilt and crushing _pain_ , and Derek simply nods at the side of the road and they switch places and he doesn’t comment on Stiles’ crying silently against the window and Stiles doesn’t comment on the new claw marks he finds on the seat, and--

There’s a lot of not talking happening and that’s the most ironic thing in the world.

Scott would laugh.

If Scott hadn’t had his throat slashed open, he would laugh.

 

~*~

 

Sometimes, when he forgets to pay attention, he thinks there’s still blood on his hands. The third day, Derek finds him in the bathroom of a truckstop, scrubbing them almost compulsively, desperately. They were pink and raw, and he was sobbing, about blood and blades and _Scott._

Allison drove, while Derek held Stiles in the backseat, and eased him through the panic attack and storm of grief.

 

~*~

 

There isn’t a destination.

There isn’t even a map, and without his phone or Allison’s, they get lost a lot.

None of them mind. If they had a plan or a place to go, or even a passing desire to go somewhere, they wouldn’t be in this Jeep.

 

~*~

 

The third night, Stiles wakes up from a fitful sleep, Allison pressed against him in a sweaty slump, when Derek parks.

The hotel is--sketchy.

Super sketchy.

“Derek, dude,” Stiles starts.

“You need a shower. And everyone needs a good night of sleep. Shut up.”

Allison stares at it and when Derek vanishes inside to get their questionable room, she murmurs, “This reminds me of that hotel we went to.”

The hotel where Scott tried to kill himself.

Stiles blinks and falls out of the Jeep, and is messily sick.

 

~*~

 

The hotel room is as bad as Stiles thought it would be. Allison brushes past him and Derek and ducks into the bathroom, and the sound of the shower doesn’t completely override the sound of her sobs, but it’s close enough that they can pretend.

“I’ll get dinner,” Derek says and Stiles nods. He curls up on the bed, and waits for Allison to emerge.

 

~*~

 

He has nightmares. He had them in the Jeep, but in bed, with too much room and nothing to ground him, he gets lost in them, gets lost in the feel of a sword sliding _deep_ , slicing open, in the feel of blood, hot and slick on his hand and big brown eyes shocked and staring.

He wakes up screaming, held down by Derek’s strong arms, and Allison’s low whines. He’s gasping, shaking, and Derek’s voice is low and dragging him back, pulling him out of his dreams.

Out of his nightmares.

“Breath, Stiles. Breath. You’re not there. It’s not real. Breath, Stiles. Come on, I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

He breaks down, then, messy tears and hot guilt, and reaches for Allison. He feels relieved and guilty, when she dives across the space between them, worming into his embrace, her breath hot and wet against his throat, Derek heavy and warm against his back, and held between them, he sleeps and he doesn’t dream.

 

~*~

 

When they were eight, Scott climbed on the roof with Stiles, wearing his Superman costume and an apprehensive expression.

“You can fly,” Stiles assured him and his friend smiled, bright and believing. “You can do anything,” Stiles promised, and the little boy jumped, arms outstretched.

He plummeted to the hard ground and Stiles screamed, before he did, and threw himself after Scott.

He ended up holding his crying friend as he sniffled and sobbed, but Scott walked away with a sprained wrist and a stern lecture.

Stiles sat there, holding Scott through it all, and it was only when John pulled him up that he gasped, a bitten off scream, and crumpled, and they realized that Stiles broke his ankle in the fall.

He spent six weeks on crutches and in a cast, but he never forgot the look in his father’s eyes when he demanded to know why Stiles hadn’t _said_ something.

“I was taking care of Scotty, Dad.” Stiles smiled, bright and unshakable. “I always gotta take care of Scotty.”

 

~*~

 

They don’t have a destination, and neither Allison or Stiles are interested in touristy shit.

But sometimes, they’ll find themselves in a small town for the day, and Allison will vanish while Derek pumps gas. He always steers the car to a thrift store, when that happens, and Stiles will pick through books and CDs, and buy enough that Derek rolls his eyes, but it’s never more than a couple dollars, so he doesn’t say much. Stiles drops the books they’re finished with off at the door in a plastic bag.

They find food and a park, and spend the day in the sun and the grass, and wait for Allison to come back to them.

And when the sun is setting, and her eyes are clearer but still unspeakably sad--she does.

 

~*~

 

Two weeks in, while they’re at a truck stop on the outskirts of Boise, he calls home.

Derek hovers nearby and Allison is pressed against his side, but the moment he hears his dad’s voice, hoarse and tired, they fade away.

“Hi, Dad,” he whispers.

“Stiles? Aw, hell, _Stiles._ Son. Where _are_ you?”

“I don’t know, Dad. I just--I’m ok.”

“Stiles--”

“Dad, I need to do this. I can’t--I can’t be there without him. I had to get away.”

“I know,” John sighs, and Stiles chokes on his sob. Allison leans heavily into his side, and he tips his head into her.

“I know you need this, kiddo. I just--I wish I could help.”

“I’m gonna be ok. Me and Ally--Derek is taking care of us. We’re not ok, not yet. But we’re gonna get there.”

“Argent is furious, you know.”

“That’s one of the reasons we’re calling you.” Stiles says and his dad huffs.

Derek taps him on the shoulder, waving a hand to wrap it up. They might be on the outskirts of the city, but if Dad is running a trace, he didn’t need the help pinpointing their location.

“I gotta go, Dad,” Stiles says.

“No, Stiles, no _,_ c’mon, son,” John begs and it breaks something in his heart.

Allison makes a wounded noise and burrows into his side.

“I love you, Dad,” he whispers.

“Sti-”

Derek’s finger comes down, and kills the call.

 

~*~

 

The Jeep breaks down in Wyoming, coming to a shuddering halt on the side of the road, while the rain is coming down and Allison is reading a ripped up paperback and Derek is sleeping.

For a moment, as it clunks and shudders, he thinks it’s going to keep going.

That it’ll push through, just like it always has.

But it doesn’t. It stops, breaks down completely, steaming and hissing in the downpour.

“What’s wrong?” Allison asks, sleepily and Stiles grunts.

Like he has any idea what’s wrong.

He hasn’t had any idea about what’s _wrong_ since before the nogitsune wrapped itself in his skin and went on a streak of terror that left his best friend dead and blood all over his hands.

He pushes out into the rain and shoves the hood up, and stares.

The jeep is held together by sheer stubbornness. Duct tape and safety pins. A fucking house of cards, and he starts laughing, his shoulders shaking as he realizes he can’t fucking fix this.

It melts into sobs so fast it leaves him gasping and he reels away, away, almost into traffic before Derek snatches his arms and pulls him impossibly close and Stiles shatters.

He breaks into pieces, screaming his rage and grief into Derek, as the rain pours down and Ally watches from the fogged up window.

He can’t fucking fix this.

 

~*~

 

“I used to be jealous of you,” she whispers.

Stiles looks over. They’re piled together in the queen, Ally pressed to his front, Derek steady at his back, because when they sleep like this, it almost keeps the nightmares at bay. Derek shifts, but he’s tired enough that her voice doesn’t pull him back to awake and Stiles is absurdly grateful.

The wolf is running himself ragged, taking care of them, and he’s not sure what will happen, when he collapses.

“You were his first everything that mattered, Stiles. You and his mom, you were his whole _world_. I didn’t know how to compete with that, or even fit in the world that didn’t have room for anyone but you and him.”

“You never had to compete for him, Allison,” Stiles whispers, dragging a hand over her hair and tears fill her eyes. “He loved you more than life itself.”

It’s true. He knows it’s true.

He died for her, took the sword blow Stiles controlled and died there, bloody and whispering her name.

“You were his whole world,” Stiles whispers, and wonders if anyone will love him the way Scott loved Allison.

He hopes if he’s worth that kind of love and knows damn well that he’s not.

 

~*~

 

He puts them in a hotel room while the Jeep is towed to a nearby garage and Stiles argues, briefly, ineffectually, about the expense, about how they didn’t need to do this.

“I need to do this,” Derek says, quietly and he stops arguing after that.

The werewolf has been constant control and taking care of them, and Stiles knew it was only a matter of time, before he broke. If this was something he needed to do--Stiles sure as hell wasn’t going to stand in his way.

Derek put them in a hotel room and took care of the Jeep and rented a car. He came back, hours later, with a trunk full of supplies and three steak dinners and chicken pasta for Allison.

He looks at them, curled on the bed like puppies, reeking of salt and sadness.

Stiles blinks at him from the nest of Allison’s hair and Ally makes a hungry noise and he know he’s right, that this is right.

“We’re going camping,” he says and they both stare at each other before Stiles nods.

“Ok.”

 

~*~

 

They camp in Yellowstone, because none of them had been there before. There were no memories of childhood,  no memories of dead chasing them. Stiles and Allison watch as Derek bustles around setting up their tent, and he lets them.

“We’re going hiking tomorrow,” he says, and neither argue which he’s totally taking as acceptance.

As soon as the tent is up, Ally crawls in and curls up, falling asleep with startling speed.

Stiles stays up with him, leaning against him as the fire crackles and wolves howl in the distance, calling a greeting to their cousin. Derek listens to them and Stiles, his heartbeat slow and steady.

 

~*~

 

They spend a week, and it’s--it’s good. It startles her, how good.

She’s still exhausted, but Derek is relentless, pushing her and Stiles out of the tent in the early morning, coaxing them to eat and herding them along the trails, to see grizzlies and wolves, to soaking in the hot springs. At night, Stiles curls next to her and she curls against Derek, and they watch the stars.

She doesn’t mention Scott.

How much he’d love to be here.

She doesn’t tell them that her mother had talked about getting a cabin in Yellowstone for a week, how Aunt Kate had always been too busy.

She doesn’t think about why she doesn’t speak up. She doesn’t want know if it’s because she doesn’t want to hurt Derek or if it’s because being here is reassuring for her.

 

~*~

 

He slips away during the full moon. Allison stays in the tent, shaking her head when Stiles nudges her.

She doesn’t want to see Derek shifted, isn’t sure she’ll ever be ready for that, after Scott.

Stiles follows him, and sits on a rocky outcropping near the lake to wait, gaze on the moon.

Since Scott was bitten, the full moon has tugged at his life. He watches the moon, has a lunar tracker on his phone, but he’s never had a full a moon like this, where the world feels pressed close and wild around him, when the sound of wolves howling echoes like a song and Derek leads the song, a song of grief and loss.

It’s the first time since they left Beacon Hills that Stiles knows, without any doubt, that Derek is grieving too.

 

~*~

 

Scott loved everyone.

It was why he befriended Stiles, when they were little kids and he was too stupid to know better.

He didn’t like Derek, at first. But it changed.

Too many times needing each other, trusting each other, _helping_ each other.

And there was--Derek trusted Stiles. And Stiles trusted him.

The first time he stumbled into the loft, and he found them wrestling, and heard Derek _laughing_ \--he thinks that’s when he started to think they’d all survive.

That things would get better.

Then the Alpha Pack killed Erica and Jennifer Blake stole their parents, and Derek gave up his powers for Cora, and everything changed.

Everything changed.

 

~*~

 

They get the Jeep back after two weeks and Stiles drives for twelve straight hours, going nowhere at all, just happy to be back in the Jeep.

Derek makes him stop after that and he is almost smiling when he collapses into the backseat.

 

~*~

 

They don't always cry. Stiles thinks that worse--the days they get through the whole day without a breakdown, because sometimes, it feels like forgetting.

 

~*~

 

Allison’s grief is a quiet thing, marked by a lethargy and apathy that worries Derek, a quiet haunting in the back of the Jeep and on her side of the hotel room.

But sometimes.

Sometimes she wakes itching with rage, and lashes out, furious and cruel.  At Derek and at Stiles, _always_ at Stiles, screaming fights before she bolts away, vanishing for hours, sometimes days.

Derek worries about her when she does that, but Stiles understand.

Sometimes, he wishes he could do the same. Wishes he could run and rage, spend his grief in fury, the way that she does.

He can’t. Derek cares about Allison, worries over her, but it’s the kind of worry and care that is adjacent to. The byproduct of caring for someone else.

He can never vanish the way that she does, because Derek would never let him.

 

~*~

 

Derek grieves, but in a distant sort of way.

Stiles thinks sometimes Derek grieves for what they could have been, what they never had the chance to be.

More than reluctant allies and wary strangers--brothers.

_Pack._

Stiles thinks sometimes that he feels guilty for that, for not grieving as deeply as Stiles and Allison.

It’s a strange thing, to feel guilty for.

 

~*~

 

He wasn’t supposed to die.

The nogitsune had a plan. Stiles knew it, even as he raged against the demon wearing him like a puppet, even as he was helpless to stop anything.

There was a plan. Kill Isaac and Allison, fracture the fledgling wolf pack in Beacon Hills even more than it was.

Destroy Derek and Lydia and Scott with two neat kills and leave Stiles a broken shell with the memories of blood and death.

It was a good plan.

It was a perfect plan.

The plan didn’t account for Scott and his love--ridiculous, mindless, selfless--for Allison.

He wasn’t supposed to die.

But then he did.

The chaos and devestation was better than anything that the nogitsune could have ever planned.

 

~*~

 

Some nights he doesn’t sleep. He lays in bed, while she sleeps, fitful and whimpering, and stares into the darkness.

Sometimes, Derek will watch him and he will stare back, a thousand unsaid things filling up the dark between them.

He always turns away, because in the unsaid things lingers the boy who drew them together and keeps them together and who will always be the ghost between them.

 

~*~

 

He stops in Colorado. Sometimes, Derek makes noises about going east but neither Stiles or Allison seem inclined to go more than twenty four hours away from Beacon Hills and he doesn’t seem inclined to push them out of their geographical bubble. But he stops in Colorado, on a bright sunny day in December, six weeks after they fled Beacon Hills and all of the memories and nightmares there.

He stops and Allison blinks at him from behind one of Derek’s many books and Derek stares at the tiny city that is painfully human and decorated for Christmas.

“I’m tired,” Stiles says.

And just like that, they stop running.


	2. Chapter 2

Sunset, Colorado is quiet. 

He thinks sometimes that’s why they ended up here--but then he thinks about Stiles, the day he stopped the jeep, the way his whole body seemed to sag with a weight that had been growing heavier and heavier since they left Beacon Hills, and he knows it’s not the quiet that drew them here, it’s the weight of everything. 

Stiles ran and ran and ran, and Derek kept pace because the boy’s wild grief terrified him, but it was never going to last. 

His guilt was a physical thing that held him down, trapped and bound him, and when he finally stopped, it wasn’t a choice as much as the inability to run any more, the inability to drag that weight any longer. 

 

~*~

 

They get a tiny apartment that comes furnished and lets them rent by the month, a garage loft owned by a grumpy widow with a soft heart and delicious cookies, and for that first week, Stiles and Allison slept, the deep exhausted sleep that would be worrisome if it weren’t so desperately needed. 

He watched them and wandered around town, when he thought it was safe to leave them alone. Soaked in the quiet and the peace of this place and wondered, idly, if it could be something they called home. 

Not for always. 

He knew that Stiles would run, but he knew that eventually the siren song of home would drag him back, that he missed his father already. 

He was less sure about Allison, but that’s been true since the day they met. 

At night, he makes food that they eat, on good days, and ignore on bad ones. Sometimes Allison’s grief dips toward anger and the food is a passive aggressive weapon, something she glares at while she cuts into it, that she uses as a barb to hurt Stiles and he wants to drag the boy away, to safety, away from Allison’s fury and tears. 

He never does, because Stiles fights just as dirty, throws every mistake and misstep Alli made right back in her face, and when he doesn’t--

When he turns silent and flinching and pale under her fury--

Derek can’t save Stiles when he doesn’t want to be saved. 

 

~*~

 

Stiles takes his GED in February, and just like that, he’s done with school, the one thing hanging over him, luring him back to Beacon Hills vanishing with a neat email and a official-ish letter in the mail. 

“I always thought when I graduated, it would be with Scott,” he says, half drunk with Derek that night. Allison is out, running, and he feels raw and exposed and too tired to keep up the pretense that he doesn’t feel the loss of Scott like an open wound. 

Derek glances at him. “I graduated from NYU a few weeks after Laura died. I was done, by the time I left New York--that’s why she left without me. I was finishing classes. It never really felt real. I wasn’t supposed to graduate without her.” 

“How do you do it?” 

“What?” 

“All the things you aren’t supposed to do with them. How do you do them?” 

Derek shrugs and sighs. “I think stubbornness and the knowledge that they wouldn’t want you to quit.” 

Stiles stares at him for a long time, but Derek is quiet and still and watches the moon. 

 

~*~

 

She gets a job at a gym, with Derek, and it’s--not strange. 

She thinks it should be, but as she leads PTA moms through yoga and answers phones at the reception desk, it’s easy. 

It’s easy to pretend this is everything she is, everything she’s ever been. 

It’s easy to forget that she loved someone once, mindless and complete and devastating, and he died, to keep her safe, he died, in her arms, smiling and telling her he loved her. 

She works and she falls into bed, muscles screaming and it’s quiet, in her mind, where the raging storm of grief has lived and she thinks this won’t always work, that it isn’t healthy at all, but it’s working for  _ now _ and maybe that’s enough. 

 

~*~

 

Stiles works at a bookstore, and he comes home smelling of coffee and ink. 

He looks bashful, the first time he sits down next to her and hands her a small sheaf of papers. 

She leans into him and murmurs, sleepily, “What is it?” 

He shrugs, fiddles with her sleeve and says, “I’ve been writing.” 

She doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t move away when she begins to read. 

When she starts to cry, she’s incredibly grateful he stays. 

 

~*~

 

He still wakes up screaming. 

It doesn’t happen as often, and it only takes being interrupted by the irate neighbors twice for Derek to snarl them into ignoring Stiles at night. But after that, he started crawling into Stiles bed earlier, abandoning the couch for the futon where the boy thrashed and twitched, and Stiles fell still and almost peaceful in Derek’s arms. 

He still screamed, but it began to slow, and Derek quieted him, quickly, a soft soothing hum that broke his screams and fear down to grief and tears and it wasn’t better--it wasn’t  _ better _ \--but it was a step toward healing. 

 

~*~

 

They don’t always notice her, she thinks. 

When Derek is holding Stiles close, the stench of his misery and fear still a misma in the air, the screams still ringing in her ears. 

Derek holds Stiles and she watches, sometimes, pulled from her bed by his cries, but they don’t notice her. 

They exist in that space she shared with Scott--a place for lovers, a place that defies any others to join them.

They aren’t, she knows they aren’t--not yet. Stiles is too wounded and Derek has always been broken, but she thinks she can see it. 

What they’re going to be, if they can put the pieces together. 

What they’re going to be together. 

She thinks that should hurt more and less than it does, and that’s confusing, but she thinks most things are, in this world without Scott. 

 

~*~

 

The apartment is shitty, but on a scale that includes deserted train stations and the condemned ruins where his family died, it’s far from the worst place he’s ever stayed. 

And it’s got Stiles, with his constant motion and conversation, and when that falters, the heavy warmth of him in Derek’s arms, familiar now after all their time traveling. 

Allison paints after a week, and he comes home to the chemical scent of it and warm lavender and cool blue and it feels a little less shitty, a little bit more like something he can call  _ home _ . 

It’s a shitty loft with a flimsy partition screen that he shares with Allison fucking Argent and the shattered ruin of a spastic teenager, and it feels more like home than anything since the fire. 

Stiles comes home with a second hand TV and Allison finds a chipped set of dishes and Derek cooks for them, sometimes, and it’s not perfect. 

There’s a gaping hole in this tiny pack they’ve created, a place where Scott should be, and he wants to howl with it, sometimes, but--

But. 

It’s not  _ bad _ , either. 

 

~*~

 

It’s not as safe, now. 

There is a real risk of the calls being traced, and she feels that fear beating in her chest. 

Still. 

It’s been  _ months _ since she’s spoken to her father, and she aches with it, with the need to curl in his arms and let him promise her the world wouldn’t hurt her. 

Even knowing it’s a lie, she wants it. 

So when Stiles says it’s time--she clears her throat and says she wants to call her dad. 

It rings twice, and she makes a tiny gasp when she hears him, hears how  _ tired _ he sounds. “Argent.” 

She breathes, and a still silence comes over the line, and then, breathlessly, “ _ Allison?”  _

“Daddy,” she squeaks out. 

“Ally, baby, you--” 

“I miss you,” she blurts out, fast because Derek’s going to cut the call sooner than she wants, and she gets, suddenly, Stiles vicious temper every time they call home, “I miss you, and I’m sorry, I know you’re worried but I’m ok, Daddy, I’m ok and I’m going to come home--” 

She chokes and stares at Derek and Stiles, wide eyed, almost misses her dad’s voice on the other end. 

“Where are you?” he snaps and she jerks, away from their shocked stares. “Allison,  _ where are you.”  _

“I--I’m not ready, Dad. Don’t look for me. I’ll be home when I can.” 

“ _ Ally,”  _

“Take care of Isaac for me, ok? And don’t hunt angry, you’re scary when you do that. I love you.” 

“Allison!” 

Derek shifts, and she nods. “Bye, Daddy.” 

She can hear him shouting, desperate and furious, as she hangs up. 

She stares at the phone, her lip trembling and Stiles sighs. “Come on, Ally A. Let’s get drunk.” 

She hiccups a laugh into his shoulder, and lets him tug her home, where they do just that. 

 

~*~

 

Stiles works in a little bookstore, and when he’s not training people at the gym, Derek likes to go there, sit in a uncomfortable overstuffed chair and watch him from over his book. 

He’s still too pale, too thin, dark shadows under his eyes--but his frantic grief is settling easing into something manageable. 

Stiles is surviving and it’s not perfect, it’s not what he wants for the boy--but it’s enough for now. 

 

~*~

 

Scott was a mystery to him. He wanted to understand the angry beta, but he didn’t. Because even when Scott was at his angriest, he saw a level of good in people that Derek didn’t understand, looked at the world and saw every good thing instead of the many ways it could break him. 

He didn’t--doesn’t--understand that.

Stiles forced them together, even when they would have given up on each other, because if Scott was optimism and earnest, Stiles was realism and pragmatic cynicism. Scott was a werewolf without a pack, without training and Derek--Derek could help him. 

He never accepted their resistance, just kept dragging Scott to Derek until it became...easier. 

Until they weren’t necessarily friends, but they were allies, they could run together through the preserve, could spar together. 

Sometimes, he felt the weight of a wrist against his fangs, and a hand at his neck, holding him in place and  _ taking _ from him and he hated Scott for that, didn’t think he’d ever not hate him. 

But Stiles trusted him. 

Stiles loved him. 

Stiles was loyal to him. 

Derek thinks that, more than anything else, was why he learned to love Scott. 

 

~*~

 

He learned a lot about grieving, when he and Laura left Beacon Hills. They were gone before the smoke cleared from the air, and it took them over a year to settle in New York, and he learned then, what it’s like to run from pain. 

It makes it easier, to be the one nudging food at them, when they retreat, to force Stiles into showers and sleep, and drag Allison to the shooting range, to make them work.

Laura didn’t--that first year, they spent so much time sleeping, days when neither left the hotel rooms or their dirty nest of blankets. 

He can’t remember the first month or so, what they ate or if they did--all he knows is that grief almost killed Laura, and guilt almost killed him, and the thought of either taking Stiles or Allison terrifies him. 

He watches them, and sometimes Stiles rolls his eyes. 

Sometimes, Allison snarls. 

But he watches them and sometimes he is so afraid of losing them, of failing them, he can’t even breathe. 

 

~*~

 

Stiles can feel himself drifting into something with Derek. When he wakes in Derek’s arms and he isn’t screaming, isn’t fighting the weight of  blade in hands sliding into hot skin and soft guts. When he wakes and the moonlight slips over Derek’s face, and the werewolf sleeps, his face still hard, still scowling, because even in sleep Derek scowls, but--gentler. 

He feels it, that ghost of a thing he thought died with Scott, the ghost of  _ maybe _ , the ghost of  _ want. _

It terrifies him, and he understands, suddenly, with an almost heartbreaking clarity, why Derek watched him, sometimes, like he was every good thing, everything Derek  _ wanted _ , and couldn’t have. 

He understands, how Derek could want, and be too afraid to touch. To take. 

Because he sees it, sometimes, and he  _ feels _ it, the way it tugs at him, drags him in like a magnet, that patient waiting, that small smiling eyes--

And he turns away. Fights the tug, shatters the moment, runs to Allison and work and the road, and anywhere that Derek isn’t. 

Because he’s broken, he’s so fucking  _ broken _ and he knows that if he touches. 

If he takes. 

He’ll shred Derek to pieces. 

 

~*~

 

He walks into the gym on a Saturday, when they’ve been in Sunset for three months, and sees something that makes his blood run cold. 

Because he knows, he  _ knows _ , more than he ever wanted to know, he  _ knows Allison. _

He knows what she looks like happy and sad and so out of her mind with rage she’s shooting arrows into her friends. He knows she’s terrified of being weak and desperate to be normal and determined to be better than her psychotic family. 

He knows what she likes in bed and that she screams sometimes, but that the little moan she gives up when she’s being filled is even better and that she likes it rough and has a daddy kink that Stiles refuses to think about given some of his own fantasies about her father. 

For months, Allison was everything Scott talked about and for months he’s lived with her, through the worst thing he thinks he will ever have to live through. 

So he knows what that smile, small and flashing a hint of dimples, shy from under her lashes, means. 

 

~*~

 

“He’s been gone for less than a  _ year _ ,” Stiles snaps, that night, his hands shaking, while Allison does the dishes. “And you’re already smiling and ready to move on.” 

Allison stares at hm, shock and hurt in her eyes, and then fury. 

It goes down hill and ends only when Derek explodes into the loft, half-shifted and snarling, and Stiles bolts. 

 

~*~

 

He doesn’t go home for three days. 

 

~*~

 

Allison goes out, her bow tucked over her back, vanishes into the woods and comes home with her fingers sore and bleeding, and Derek wonders if she’s killing or just practicing. 

“I can’t--I can’t kill anymore,” she says, once, when she catches him watching her, still and cautious. 

“Not since Scott.” 

She did--she killed the nogitsune and his Oni, but Derek thinks rage might have carried her long enough to do that. 

“I wish I could, sometimes,” she adds and he nods. Because he understands that simmering rage, all too well. 

 

~*~

 

When Stiles creeps home, Allison is in the kitchenette, pouring a mug of coffee and she stares at him for a moment, at his big startled eyes and half open mouth and says. “I have to flirt, Stiles. It’s my job. It doesn’t mean shit. Don’t--Scott wasn’t my brother, but don’t  _ ever _ think I don’t miss him.” 

He stares at her and she steps past him, headed to the door and says. “Don’t leave like that again. Derek’s been worried.” 

 

~*~

 

The phone rings and it makes her gut tighten, waiting. 

“Argent.” 

She breathes out, and closes her eyes. “Hi, Dad.” 

He sighs. “I hoped you’d call.” 

She closes her eyes. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year, and yet,easy to believe, too. 

“I don’t think she’d recognize me, now,” she whispers. 

“She’d always recognize you, baby.” 

“I don’t,” she confesses, softly. “I don’t--I don’t know who the hell I am, Dad. I don’t think I  _ want _ to know.” 

“You’re my daughter, and hers,” her dad snaps, fierce and protective, even now. 

Always, she thinks. 

“And you were his whole heart. That’s what matters.” 

She breathes, wet and shuddery, and he hums, a familiar tune that she remembers him whispering the words to, when she was crying after they moved again. Her mom never comforted her when she cried--but he did. Always. 

“I miss you,” she whispers, and for the first time, she thinks about going home. 

 

~*~

 

They weren’t friends. 

Before. Stiles  _ liked _ her, and knew more about her than he was ever going to be comfortable with, and he didn’t  _ mind _ her, really. But he didn’t trust her, and he resented her, resented that Scott loved her so much, that he was so quickly and easily forgotten. 

He couldn’t hate Scott, not ever, and it was easy to put blame on her. To dislike her because of it. To keep his distance--and after her mother’s death and her brief dip into psychotic behavior and attempting to kill werewolves, he didn’t  _ trust  _  her. 

Until she slid into an ice bath and died, to save her father and his, and it was enough. 

But they weren’t friends, even when they shared that thing that no one else could--but he realizes, as he listens to her bitch about a coworker, as he cooks and slaps her hands away from the bell peppers and catches her grin, that--

They are. 

They’ve become friends, and he doesn’t know  _ how _ , but he knows that it’s true and he thinks, if any good came out of this, out of running away and losing Scott--he’s glad that they’re friends. 

 

~*~

 

He misses the land, sometimes. Not anything else, but he misses the land. He misses the feel of home, something that Sunset has never felt like, not even when Stiles curls in his arms, warm and trusting and not as broken as he could be. 

But he waits, because as much as he misses the land, the freedom of the preserve to run through and the familiar scents and his family’s grave--he will never push Stiles or Allison into going home. 

But he watches them, the way she puts on weight so she isn’t shadow and bones and bruised skin. 

He listens to Stiles, and how he sings quietly while he’s cooking. He smiles sometimes, and it’s not quite wide and free,  not the boy he met in the woods--but it’s closer than it has been since before the nogitsune. 

 

~*~

 

The day it happens, Stiles rolls over in bed, after a night held by Derek and only one nightmare that the older man soothed away before Stiles started screaming. He can hear Allison in the shower, and smell burnt toast because their toaster burns everything but Allison is stubborn and insists on making it anyway. Derek is still sleeping, but he stirs sleepily and reaches to drag Stiles closer, and Stiles--

Stiles cranes his neck up, and presses a dry, chaste kiss to Derek’s lips. 

Derek’s grip flexes on his hip, and he shifts, cradling the back of Stiles’ head. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, the question brushing Stiles’ lips and he nods, he nods and whimpers as he shifts closer, and Derek sighs into the next kiss, wetter, a little sour from morning breath, but sweet, gentle, easy. 

It’s the first time Stiles thinks maybe they’ll be ok. 

 

~*~

 

Stiles is quiet when he comes home, and Allison curls next to him on the couch, pulls a blanket over them and just breathes. 

Days like this are less common. She thinks it’s because they all have something  _ else _ now, something beyond an endless stretch of road and unrelenting grief and guilt. 

“Sometimes I hate it here. Because we have this whole life, and he’ll never know it,” Stiles says, wetly, and she nods.

She doesn’t know what a future without Scott looks like, and everyday that she gets a glimpse of it, and it makes her ache. 

This isn’t the future she chose, it isn’t the life she wanted. 

 

~*~

 

Stiles stares at the email for a long time. 

The headstone is simple, a black slab of marble that shakes him more than he expects. It’s written in stone, now, and even though he knows, he  _ knows _ , he’s known since he watched his Oni slice into Scott, and his brother cough up blood--it feels  _ real _ in a way that he can’t ignore or deny or run from. 

He crawls into bed, and cries, his breath catching in his throat as he grieves. 

Derek finds him there, hours later, kisses him softly and wipes away the tear tracks. 

And Stiles looks at him. “I want to go home.” 

Derek nods. “Ok.” 

 

~ *~

 

They’re not fixed. 

They’re still sharp edges and grief and so much guilt it feels crippling. 

Derek holds Stiles’ hand in his and Allison leans her chin on his shoulder as they drive back into Beacon Hills. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [Tumblr](http://areiton.tumblr.com/)!


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